Umami Burger

We went to a late lunch at Umami Burger in Wicker Park. This restaurant has locations in other states but this is the only location in Illinois. We tried a couple of the burgers.

Umami Burger

Umami Burger (Original) - with parmesan frico, shittake mushroom, roasted tomato, caramelized onion, Umami ketchup

Throwback Burger - 2 patties, white cheddar cheese, miso mustard, Umami ketchup, pickles, minced onions

Throwback Burger

We also got a serving of Fries - they are thin cut fries which are served with 3 different sauces - umami ketchup, garlic sauce, and jalapeno sauce.  They fries were good not great, but the sauces were really good as a different option to regular ketchup.

Nick liked the Umami burger better but Natalie preferred the Throwback.  They told us the most popular burger is called the Manly burger but that didn't sound very appealing to us.

Final thoughts on Umami Burger:
Food - very tasty burgers, but a little pricey

Service - very good service. The server explained the whole menu and what the sauces were very thoroughly.

Atmosphere - This is a sit down restaurant which is different than some of the other casual burger joints. It is relatively small and they don't take reservations so we were lucky to be there on the late side of the lunch hour so we didn't have to wait.

Palmer Place

Pretzel Bites

We ate dinner at Palmer Place in La Grange.  It has been has been featured on Chicago's Best. We have eaten here a couple of times before but this is the first time we were able to eat outside in the Biergarten.  It was a nice day and most everyone was doing that.  They have a large outdoor space on 2 levels. When we first moved to the area this is the place in La Grange where everyone told us to go.

We started out with Pretzel Bites and a honey mustard dipping sauce.  They taste exactly like a doughly pretzel would taste but in minature form.

Mexicali Burger

There are over 30 hamburgers listed on the menu so it is really difficult to decide. We went with:

Mexicali burger - with jalapeno jack cheese, guacamole and pico de gallo.  A bit messy but we both love guacamole so it is okay.

Benchmark Burger - it was listed as a new burger on the menu.  Is is a more specialty burger with a blend of prime chuck, brisket and short rib.  It was topped with Cheddar cheese, smoked picante ketchup (spicy), roasted red pepper remoulade, bacon, tomato and pickle slaw.  The ketcup was spicy.

Benchmark Burger

The menu said that the Benchmark Burger was chosen as the 2011 People's Choice Award Winner, Chicago Gourmet Hamburger Hop in Millenium Park. That is part of why we ordered it.   

The burgers can come with a variety of sides - we chose fries and potato salad.  The potato salad left something to be desired so try something else. 

Maybe Natalie is getting burned out with hamburgers.  Yes these were good burgers but all hamburgers are starting to meld together now.

Final thoughts on Palmer Place:
Food - large burger selection which should accomodate most people's preferences.
Service - it sure seemed like it took a long time to get our food out.  Another table got pretzel bites a little before us, but we thought when we saw the place coming (kind of in our direction) that they were for us since so much time had elapsed.
Atmosphere - fun atmosphere, local hangout for groups









Bop n Grill

Philly Cheese Steak Egg Rolls

We went to dinner at Bop n Grill in Roger's Park.  We have seen it featured on Diners, Drive ins and Dives and Chicago's Best and despite being located on the furthest north part of Chicago (therefore furthest from where we live) we wanted to try it.

What we ordered:

Philly cheese steak egg rolls - this is an appetizer that is only available Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. They limit the amount one can order to 2 egg rolls and once they are gone they don't make any more for the day.  They were cooked to order - served hot and fresh. It is a fun twist on both a cheese steak and egg rolls.  Nick wished there were more cheese.  Maybe it was bit overhyped - it was tasty but we wouldn't need to go there on a weekend specifically for this dish. This is one of the dishes featured on Diners, Drive ins and Dives.



Kimchi fries

Kimchi fries - also featured on DDD. These fries were pretty great. The fries were topped with caramelized kimchi, scallions, bacon, cheese sauce and sesame seeds. We were worried the kimchi might be a bit much for us but it was milder than we thought and gave the whole dish a nice heat. But if you need more heat, they had sriracha sauce on hand. We ate the fries with a fork to get all of the toppings in one bite. These fries were also featured on Chicago's Best.

Umami Burger

Umami burger - also featured on DDD. This is their number one selling burger. Topped with truffled mushroom, sun dried tomato, bacon, smoked gouda and togarashi mayo. Umami is known as the 5th basic taste after sweet, salty, bitter and sour. This was the quntessential umami taste - juicy burger with both salty and sweet components.  Mushrooms are high in the umami taste which is why they were on this burger. It wasn't an overly large burger; we split it in half and each wanted more.

Chicken Katsu- panko crusted chicken served as a dinner platter with rice, kimchi, a side salad and katsu sauce.  This was featured on Chicago's best.  Of the 4 things we ordered this was the least impressive.  It was a nice tasty fried chicken dish but not something we would order again. Not much to say about this compared to the Umami burger and the kimchi fries.

Final thoughts on Bop n grill:

Chicken Katsu

Food - a different way to fuse Korean and American styles.  We really haven't eaten too much kimchi in our lives but this made it more accessible.

Service - there is counter service where you order your meal at a counter and then wait for your number to be called.  It took about 15 minutes for us to get our food which seemed to be the normal wait time because they cook everything to order. We happened to get to the restaurant right at a moment when it was raining pretty hard outside.  This worked to our benefit because it kept some other customers away for a bit longer.  We didn't have to wait to order at all.  But while we were eating (and the rain stopped) many locals walked in.

Atmosphere - Bop n Grill is located right in the middle of the Loyola campus in Rogers Park. So there are a lot of college age customers.  We felt that except for one other party we were the oldest customers there. After the rain stopped we got a sense of the more normal busier atmosphere for dinner. We loved the food but this is literally one of the furthest restaurants from our house so it would be hard to return.

Smashburger

We went to eat dinner at Smashburger - a new location for this franchise opened near where we live.

Mushroom and Swiss Burger

Mushroom and Swiss burger - The burger patties here were just right; thick but not too thick and filled the bun. It would be hard to go wrong with a mushroom and Swiss and they didn't.  The cheese was nice and melted into the patty and mushrooms gave it that juicy pop of flavor.
As a side with this burger we got Onion petals with sauce. Well when we hear petals, we think of something like a flower that you can grab onto and hold a dip of sauce. We were hoping for something like onion rings, but they need to rename these and call them Onion strings because that is what they were. They were fresh fried onions, kind of like what you get for a green bean casserole topping. These onion petals would make a great burger topping but at as side they didn't cut it. They were hard to pick up with your fingers and even harder with a fork because they were so small that once dipped in to the sauce they either broke or didn't hold the dipping sauce. SKIP this as a side. 

Spicy Baja Burger

Spicy Baja burger - yum! Nick had been gradually increasing his spice tolerance and this was definitely helping that tolerance.  It had a healthy topping of Jalapenos, pepper Jack cheese, spicy chipotle mayo and a chipotle bun.  Nick thought it was a great combo with the coolness of the avocado and the zing of the everything else. We go the signature Smash fries with this order - they were coated in olive oil, rosemary and sea salt. They were very good fries and we would recommend this side for sure. Nick liked these fries a lot more then the over-hyped Truffle fries that every one is pushing these days. The fries were long and slender and crisp. We got a generous portion and liked them much more then the fried onions.

Final thoughts on Smashburger:
Food - good burgers.  We chose burgers off the menu but you can customize your own burger with the toppings you like.  Stay away from the onion side.
Service - You order your food at the counter and the food is brought to you at your table.  All of the staff were almost too friendly. Maybe we got there at a shift change.  We were sitting in a direct path where all the servers came in and out of the kitchen so we were often asked by multiple servers if every thing was ok, which is nice but too much of a good thing can even be bad.
Atmosphere - the restaurant is clean, neat and new.  It will be interesting to see how they fare against home town faves such as Palmer Place and Back alley burger in La Grange. We do like that there is close parking; something that isn't always possible in La Grange.

Country House

Muffaletta

We went to dinner at the Country House in Clarendon Hills.  We really hadn't heard much about their food but we had heard that this restaurant is haunted (but nothing mysterious happened when we dined there).

Muffaletta - sandwich with baked ham, hard salami, Monterrey Jack and Swiss Cheese, with a garlicky olive spread, served hot on french bread.  It came with onion rings.  It was not a super traditional Muffaletta but it was good. Who knew that Nick really liked warm olives and that garlic made it that much better

Poblano Bites - these were similar to jalapeno poppers but also had Poblano peppers which gave them a smoky kick. They were served with a south west ranch sauce.  Overall very good but a little too hot for Natalie.

Poblano Bites

Country burger - with Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, grilled onions and pickle on a bun (or can be on rye bread).  You have you choice of  with or without cheese and then your choice of cheese, bread, or coleslaw on the burger, and onions. This was our Goldilocks of burger sizes this month - the burger was not as super sized as Kuma's Corner but not as thin as DMK. It was the perfect ratio of meat to toppings  it was very tasty perfectly cooked. Apparently this burger was voted best burger by the Chicago Tribune.

Country Burger

Pumpkin bread pudding with cinnamon ice cream, whipped cream and caramel.  We wish there was more because it seemed to disappear so quickly. It was warm gooey goodness that was hard to resist so we didn't. Almost every thing you want out of a Fall desert.

Final thoughts on Country House:
Food - very good, we didn't have much of an expectation before eating here but everything was great
Service - all of the wait staff was very friendly to us.
Atmosphere - we got there at about 5:30 on a Friday night. The place was already quite hopping, especially in the bar area. We got the last open table at that time.  When we left there was a line waiting. It looked like there were a lot of regulars. 

Pumpkin Bread Pudding

DMK

We went to dinner at DMK Burger in Lombard (they also have a location in Chicago).  The Chicago location has been featured on Diners, Drive Ins and Dives.

Deviled Eggs

The burgers here are really thin patties, kind of the opposite of Kuma's Corner in that regard. But the flavors were pretty incredible.  They had good burger flavor combinations where you could taste all of the components.

Bison Burger

Bison Burger - with goat cheese, pickled onions and blueberry BBQ sauce. Really nice combination, especially with the onions and blueberry BBQ.  The only thing was that since the burger was so thin it was hard to tell that it was indeed a bison burger.

Holy Guac-Aoli Burger - with chorizo, guacamole  chipotle aioli. Nice amount of spice, not too overwhelming

Holy Guac-aoli burger

Cheddar scallion fries

Fries - with cheddar cheese and scallions. It was real cheddar cheese not just fake cheese wiz so it tasted really good

Chocolate shake - really good.  We were debating on whether to order this but it tasted great.

Free deviled eggs - They brought these out before the burgers - they had a little bit of a kick to them, almost like there was chili powder sprinkled on them instead of paprika.

Chocolate shake

We went before six on a Friday night and got seated right away but by the time we left there was definitely a line waiting for a table.

Final thoughts on DMK Burger:

Food - Good burger combinations - we really enjoyed the flavors more then Kuma's Corner. But Natalie thought the burger patty sizes were a bit small.

Service - good service; looks they may bring all newcomers to the restaurant a free deviled eggs order
Atmosphere - bar up front, all of the wait staff was dressed up for Halloween (we were there the weekend before Halloween).

Kuma's Corner

We ate dinner at Kuma's Corner after hearing about it for a while. We saw it on Diner's, Drive ins and Dives, and it has also been featured on Check Please.

They mainly serve burgers (but there are other items on the menu).  The burgers are 10 oz - so quite large, and they are served on pretzel buns.  These burgers were almost too large - in the sense that Natalie couldn't even fit a full cross section bite into her mouth.

We ordered 2 different hamburgers and tried each of them. All of the burgers are named after heavy metal bands to go along with the theme of the whole restaurant - it is very dark inside and they play metal music.

The burgers we ordered:

Absu - Tomatillo Salsa, Pepperjack, Red Onion Avocado Relish, Queso Fresco, Trio of Breaded Deep Fried Chiles.  This was a little spicier than Natalie would have wanted.  The toppings seemed to not be placed very evenly because sometimes you couldn't really taste some of the items - especially the case for Nick, he didn't even get to taste the cheese.

Mega Deth with chips

Mega Deth - Chorizo and Red Potato Hash, Pico de Gallo, Cayenne Avocado Cream, Tortilla Strips.  The combination sounded great - but it was a little mild after eating the Absu.  We would have preferred cheese on it

The menu did have a lot of very unique burger combinations.  Maybe we chose poorly but we really didn't think they were super special. If we compare this experience to our experiences eating at Hot Dougs or Frank N Dawgs (gourmet and specialty hot dogs and sausages), we didn't enjoy the food as much. 

Absu burger with fries

Kuma's has a lot of rules

- i.e. no reservations. no substitutions of ingredients, so you have to follow how they do things.  This is fine with us but might be a problem for others

We had heard that because they don't take reservations and they have a smaller dining area that some people can wait up to 2 hours on busier nights.  Therefore we went on a Wednesday night and succeeded in having a much shorter wait - about 15 minutes.

Maybe there was just way too much hype about this place but there is no way we would want to wait 2 hours to eat here.

Another thing to mention is that the kitchen is very small so it takes a few minutes longer than normal to get the food out to each table.

Final Thoughts on Kuma's Corner:
Food - good but not great.  It could have just been our expectations or because we have some awesome burgers within a 10 minute drive of us at Palmer Palace and Back Alley burger (with little to no wait and not as many rules)
Service - pretty standard, we already knew what we wanted to order because we had looked at the menu while we were waiting to be seated, so that sped things up a bit
Atmosphere - very unique, you could tell pretty easily who were the regulars versus the newbies (all of the newbies, including us, had cameras out taking pictures of everything). It was loud inside so not a place to take grandma.

Labriola Bakery Cafe

After such a rich breakfast we had planned on having a light dinner of salads. But 30 min after we ate our  salads we were still hungry. Lucky for us that along our route of doing errands for the evening is one of Natalie's family's favorite bakery places - Labriola Bakery Cafe in Oakbrook. It is set up like a Panera in that you order at a counter, are given a number, and the food is brought out to you. Where it is unique is that there is an Italian slant to the bakery and it has its own wood fire stone oven. We have been there before for breakfast and were wowed. We also saw it on Chicago's Best featuring their burgers, sandwiches and pizzas, so we wanted to try the lunch/dinner menu.

buffalo mozzarella pizza

We ordered a pizza and a burger.  We had the buffalo mozzarella pizza, a traditional Neapolitan style pizza made in the wood fired stone oven. We were seated where we could see all of the pizzas being made so we got to see them put large chunks of buffalo mozzarella over a fresh sauce and topped with basil.  We wondered why there were so many cheese pizzas being ordered. Then we realized that most of the pizzas were meatless because most of the Catholic faith was not eating meat on that day. Needless to say you don't need to be avoiding meat to enjoy the Pizza. The pizza is thin but chewy; it came out before our burger and didn't last very long in front of us.

Richie burger

The Burger came out next.  It is served on a pretzel bun (a signature bread of Labriola that is even available at Costco) and is topped off with white cheddar, lettuce and tomato. The Richie burger is served with a side of fries. The meat was cooked to a perfect medium.  The patty was warm, thick and jucy. The burger was great but was made much more special due to the pretzel bun.  What a great way to take the burger to another level.

Final thoughts on Labriola:
Food - very good, especially for a more casual place. In addition to the burgers and pizzas, there are salads, hot and cold sandwhiches
Service - Since we sat right near the kitchen we probably we're served our food faster than other groups. Servers bring your food to you and clear plates.  You are also given a plate of bread up sitting down.  But you are responsible for getting your own drinks.

Atmosphere - It seems like this place is alwasy busy and this Holiday Friday was no exception.  The lines didn't take too long to order, but it is a little crazy to manuever around some of the spaces.

Goose Island

We went to dinner at Goose Island, a restaurant and brewery on Clybourn in Lincoln Park in Chicago.  We have had Goose Island Root Beer at home so that intrigued us.  We passed by it many months ago and made a note to try it someday.

Vanilla Creme & Spicy Ginger Sodas

You might think why in the world would 2 non-drinkers want to go eat at a brewery, but not only do they offer craft beers they also make there own line of soda pop.  There are 5 sodas to choose from - root beer, spicy ginger, vanilla creme, orange creme and grape.  We ordered the spicy ginger and the vanilla creme.  Both were really good, the spicy ginger was extremely unique.  We have seen all of their soda pop flavors for sale at our local grocery store so we will definitely be buying it sometime soon.

Jalapeno Appetizer

As an appetizer we ordered Stuffed Smoked Jalapenos with aged cheddar, cilantro and tomato creme fraiche. This take on a jalapeno popper was way more upscale than we were expecting.  The cheese wasn't too globby like most poppers  and it wasn't over breaded so you could still taste the jalapeno.  The jalapenos were served over bean sprouts and diced tomatoes to make it a lighter dish.

Black Earth Burger

One of the entrees we ordered was called a Black Earth Burger.  It was a hamburger with all natural beef, a goat cheese croquette, onion marmalade and spinach and it came with fries (these fries only came with ketchup not the truffle alioli like you can order as a side dish).  We were a bit apprehensive to order a burger thinking that it might just be standard bar food, but it really proved to be otherwise.  The burger was cooked to a perfect medium; it was tender and juicy.  The goat cheese was really great, especially served as a croquette because it was a great vessel to ensure the cheese didn't melt too much before being served.

Duck Reuben with homemade chips

The entree we ordered was called a Duck Reuben.  The sandwich included thinly sliced duck, baby swiss cheese, cherry sauerkraut, and house mustard all served on marble rye bread.  If you didn't know it was duck you never guess that it was. The duck meat was very moist.  This sandwich had a very unique taste, the cherry sauerkraut binds it all together kind of like Russian dressing does for a regular Reuben. The sandwich was served with homemade seasoned chips, which were great.  Definitely choose the chips over the fries as a side. They were unique in that they combined both salty and sweet tastes.

The menu descriptions here really undersell the quality of the food.  The food is all locally sourced so the food seems fresher and more flavorful. We came in with low expectations of the bar food but we were blown out of the water at the quality. Goose Island is an actual brewery and you can see the fermenting tanks by the entrance.  Nick first learned about this restaurant when we parked nearby to go on a ghost tour.  Something nice about this restaurant for the neighborhood is that they have their own free parking lot.

Final thoughts on Goose Island:

Food - high end bar food for a good price.  We would take people who appreciated this type of atmosphere in a heartbeat.
Service - We ate here on a Monday night so the restaurant was not very full.  We felt that the server actually cared about our experience.
Atmosphere -  We probably didn't get the full experience of this place coming early on a Monday evening.  But it looks like a nice place to hang out with friends. One thing to keep in mind is that there are 2 entrances to the restaurant so it can be a little confusing to find the hostess stand to be seated - but there are signs to direct you.

Brewery area

Rockit Bar & Grill

We went to dinner at Rockit Bar & Grill in Chicago on a lively Friday night. We went to the location at 22 West Hubbard Street in River North and there is also a location in Wrigleyville. We had heard about this restaurant from Check Please and from hearing that they had been voted as having the best burger in America from Good Morning America.

Rockcorn Shrimp

Rockit is located on a happening block filled with many other bars and restaurants. It definitely seemed like the place to be on a Friday night. The first floor is half bar and half restaurant. The decore included dark wood paneling with exposed brick and reclaimed wood tables.  The bar area was boisterous.  It seemed like a very young and hip crowd.

We ordered 2 appetizers and 2 entrees, which was more than enough food.  Apparently we picked a good time to go (around 6:30pm) because we ended up getting a half off discount on the appetizers - perhaps due to happy hour - we weren't quite sure.  The appetizers we picked were the Rockcorn shrimp and Grapenutts.  The rock shrimp were fried and tossed in a chili lime sauce and served over a bed of romaine lettuce.  The sauce had a good flavor, but from the red look of it we thought the shrimp would be spicy and instead they were more mild. The Grapenutts are not what you think and more a play on the word.  They were jumbo chilled green grapes rolled in goat cheese and crushed pistachios. They had a very fresh and clean taste and at least appeared to be relatively healthy.  We would love to try recreating this dish at home - we just wouldn't know where to find such perfectly round and huge grapes. Both of the appetizers were presented with a bit of an Asian flare.  With the shrimp there was a little rice paper bag to exude the look of Chinese take out and the grapes were served in a large martini glass with chopsticks.

Grapenutts

Inside a Grapenutt

Since part of the reason for eating here was hearing about the burger we couldn't pass up ordering their signature burger, the Rockit Burger.  It is a Kobe beef burger, with melted brie cheese, fried shallots and a medjool (Arabic) date alioli on a red onion brioche bun and served with truffle fries. Obviously with Kobe beef and brie you can't go too wrong.  The meat was tender yet smoky.  The brie was firm enough that it didn't ooze everywhere but was gooey in your mouth.  The date alioli was sweet and tasty - we just wish there was a little more of it on the burger.  We saw the shallots but we really couldn't taste them too much. Natalie felt the bun was a little too big to fit in her mouth but Nick had no problem. Overall we enjoyed the burger, but I guess the term Best Burger in America is subjective so you'll have to decide for yourself.

Rockit Burger & Truffle Fries

Buffalo Chicken Macaroni & Cheese

The other entree we ordered was a Buffalo Chicken macaroni and cheese. Nick often comments that mac n cheese is a trendy item to have on a menu but he doesn't understand the craze.  With this variation on a mac n cheese he felt it was different enough that he wanted to try it and it didn't disappoint.  It was a 4 cheese mac with thinly sliced buffalo chicken pieces and topped off with blue cheese crumbles.  The blue cheese added a totally new flavor component to the other cheeses and the buffalo essence worked well with all the cheese. The only other mac n cheese we have eaten that has been as different and interesting has been at Zingerman's Roadhouse in Ann Arbor, Michigan (it was rated as America's best Comfort Food by the Food Network).

Final thoughts on Rockit Bar & Grill:
Food - not your standard bar fare, definitely go here for the food even if the bar scene is not your thing
Service - the service at the restaurant was excellent, the water glasses were constantly filled, the food came out very quickly and plates were cleared promptly.  The main restaurant area is not that large.  In fact when we came in we thought we overheard the party in front of us get turned away because the list for dinner was already filled (so make a reservation). The only complaint we have about service is that when they called to confirm the reservation they made it clear in no uncertain terms that you can only be seated once all your party has arrived and that 15 minutes after your reservation your table will be given away. It seemed like a snide/snotty comment to make.  We already knew that this is a popular spot.  However once we were there the overall experience made up for that comment.
Atmosphere - lively and noisy, not that place for an intimate dinner.  They were lots of large groups of 20 to 30 somethings in the bar and restaurant.